Iris
by Neko-Chan in Wonderland
Summary: [Oneshot] Their glass carraige began it's descent to becoming a pumpkin as soon as they spoke of love. There were seven steps to the end of their act, beginning before they could even remember, beginning and ending with an simple flower: Iris. TamaHaru


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Ouran Host Club.

**A/N:** This is the best fanfic I have like ever written. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

There's a dream that they had all been riding since they had met. It wasn't one that was very clear, yet one that left a lasting impression. It was their very own carriage made of glass, and the driver hardly even knew he was driving it. Unintentionally he led them along under the silver glow of a full moon until he realized something and stopped driving. Like the chiming bells of midnight, the words rang out through the night. The magic words that shattered their glass carriage into a pumpkin once more.

"I love you."

When had this world he created begun falling apart? Long before any of them could remember. The first time they met had been shoved into the deep recesses of forgotten memories and fooled them into thinking they had met for the first time in the Third Music Room of the Ouran Academy. No, their descent from everything they had previously known began long ago with a simple flower: an iris, worming it's way slowly into their lives as Kotoko Fujioka pieced together the bouquet with a smile.

I.

Haruhi sat in a field gathering irises, humming idly to herself. At about five years old, she was more intelligent than most her age, but was also rather dry for a child. She intimidated others her age quite a bit.

A small child who looked about her age (but was actually two years older) kneeled by her side, looking at the flowers with shining brown eyes.

Haruhi looked to the side and tilted her head with a smile. "Want to help me pick? I'm picking them for Mommy—she likes these flowers!" She offered the little boy next to her.

The boy sniffled. "Daddy says boys don't like flowers. He says I should play with cars. But… I like flowers." The boy turned his tearful eyes to Haruhi.

Haruhi blinked. "That's stupid." She said unsympathetically in a very Haruhi-like manner. She picked a few more flowers before looking up at the boy. "Honey."

"Eh?" The boy blinked and tilted his head.

She grinned. "Your hair is yellow, like Honey. So that's what I'll call you."

"Mitsukuni!" Another taller boy at about seven years old walked over. "There's cake, if you want…" He said, running his fingers through his short black hair.

"Cake!!" The little blonde one instantly cheered up and began skipping away singing happily.

"Hey." Haruhi said to the taller boy. He looked down. "Honey-kun." Haruhi pointed to the blonde one. "He likes flowers." She plucked an iris and gave it to the black haired boy. "Give it to him." With that she resumed picking flowers.

The boy blushed, took the flower, and ran off after "Honey-kun". However exactly when and why Hani insisted on shortening his name from Haninozuka to "Hani" had slipped everyone's memory. And Honey never did find out how Mori knew about his love for flowers.

II.

The hospital was stiflingly sparkling white and the antiseptic smell was suffocating. Haruhi walked silently along, a bouquet of blue irises taking up her arms and nearly obscuring her vision. The past few weeks had a numbing effect on her, and she neither spoke nor responded, even as she bumped into several people. Her face remained blank as she walked to the waiting room and sat down in a chair, completely unaware of her surroundings, to wait for her father to return.

She had not realized that she had just sat smack dab between two redheaded twins about her age who were in the middle of a conversation before she broke in. "What are you doing?" One of them asked as she stared straight ahead.

She looked to either side of her as if only just noticing the two. "I'm sitting, what does it look like?" Six-year-old Haruhi said in a flat tone.

"Why are you sitting between us?" The other twin asked in an irritated tone of voice.

"Because it's the only empty seat." Haruhi replied plainly, tucking a stray lock of her long brown hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, but you could have asked one of us to move. You can't just come between us like that." The louder of the two told her impatiently, scowling.

"Why not? It's not like you're one person. Even if you do look alike, that doesn't mean you're the same." She said crisply looking from one boy to the other in a chiding manner.

The two simultaneously crossed their arms and leaned back in somewhat of a submission. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Mommy's sick, but she says she'll be better real soon—that she's just tired. I brought her irises… they're her favorite. I'm waiting for daddy to sign us in so we can go see her." She said softly, smiling as she traced the petals of an iris delicately with her fingertips. "What about you two?"

"Our mom's having some operation or something. But she's okay." The calmer of the two twins shrugged. "I'm Kaoru, by the way. And that's Hikaru." He said pointing to himself, and then his brother, who nodded.

"I'm Haruhi." They shared a silence for a moment. "I want to go to the bathroom. Can you guys watch Mommy's flowers for me?" She asked them pleadingly.

They both shrugged and nodded at once. She smiled and muttered a "Thanks" before disappearing. Shortly after she had left, a man with short reddish hair appeared, searching the waiting room with a panicked look on his face. Hikaru and Kaoru exchanged glances before calling him over and telling him where his daughter had wandered off. Haruhi came back before her father could even take a seat, and picked up the flowers.

"Thank you Hikaru, Kaoru." She grinned, pointing to each of them as she said their names. She and her father left the waiting room, leaving the twins blinking after her.

She had called them each by the correct name, even though they had switched seats while she was in the bathroom, just to trick her. However, they soon shrugged it off as coincidence and the instance was long forgotten in their minds.

Haruhi and her father reached her mother's hospital room to find it in chaos. Her father soon joined the doctors and nurses, who were beginning to thin out of the room. Through the tall figures of the adults looming over her, Haruhi saw her mom's body lying on the bed, her hands folded across her chest. She stepped forward and tugged on her father's sleeve.

"Daddy, why isn't Mommy moving? Is she sleeping? Can we wake her up?" She asked innocently, looking expectantly up at Fujioka Ryoji. He knelt down and hugged his daughter tightly.

"No, Haruhi, we can't."

The beautifully arranged bouquet of irises scattered at her feet.

III.

As cold and bleak the afternoon was, Haruhi stepped into the gates of the cemetery six years after she had first felt her mother's hand to be cold. Despite the years that had passed, Haruhi's face had not lost its numb quality. A smile now and then and brief moments of happiness naturally lit her on a daily basis, but the longing look in her eyes when she looked up at the sky remained the same as the years passed unnoticed.

She placed the bunch of freshly picked irises from the field they used to go to when she was younger in front of the stone carved with the characters of her mother's name. Her mother, however, had long ago disappeared into nothing more than wisps of smoke.

She knelt there for a long time as if staring at the grave long enough would make her mother come back to life. "Hey mommy… you know… I'm in junior high now… Can you believe it?" She spoke in a trembling voice, barely audible to the grave itself. The snow-white tips of the irises gleamed with tears.

A sudden gust of wind swept the carefully placed flowers into disarray. As Haruhi watched each white flower blow away into the grayness of the day, she saw all her hope swirl away from her grasp.

She tried desperately to wipe up her tears and smile for her mother but kept failing. Instead she curled up in the grass at the foot of Kotoko's grave and cried until sleep took her. She didn't even wake up as rain poured down from the bleak sky.

When her eyes finally did open she found her school uniform soaked, and the sound of rain resonating around her. The first thing her eyes encountered were a pair of perfectly polished and expensive looking black shoes, although a little muddy from the weather. She looked up to see a boy with black hair and eyes hidden behind glasses sitting next to her, sheltering them with an umbrella. She looked down to see her slightly muddy white flowers in her arms once again, only now some violet ones mingled in the bouquet. She looked to her side to see an identical bouquet on the grave next to her mother's. She sat up and the boy noticed her.

"Oh, you're awake I see." He smiled politely, though his eyes remained distant. She noticed his hands were scuffed and dirt stained and his clothes were damp despite the umbrella.

"Did you… gather up the flowers for me?" She asked quietly, trying to wipe the mud off of the white of her uniform as a distraction from looking directly at him. She was a bit embarrassed to have been found asleep at the foot of a grave on a rainy day.

He nodded. "I assumed they were yours because they were scattered all around you. I was a little worried you had passed out considering you hadn't gathered them up again. It was already raining at that time too, so…" He trailed off, finding it pointless to continue his explanation.

"Thank you." Haruhi said softly, fixing her bangs absentmindedly. "Were the violet ones yours?"

"Yeah…I thought… they looked pretty together. I thought maybe mom would like the white also…" The boy smiled in that distant manner, as if he wasn't really in this world at all. It was almost ghostly.

Haruhi looked towards the grave next to her. It read "Ohtori Haruka". "I'm sorry…" She nearly whispered.

"I hope your mother likes them too…" he traced his fingers over Kotoko's grave.

"How'd you know…?"

"You called out for her in your sleep." The Ohtori replied in a quiet voice. Haruhi fell silent and there was a pause between them before the boy spoke again. "I'm going to be leaving soon. You should go home too. You can take my umbrella, I have a car waiting right outside the cemetery."

"Oh…" Was all Haruhi managed to say as the older boy handed her the umbrella. "Yeah… you're right I should leave also." She cast a longing glance towards her mother's grave.

The black-haired boy paused before leaving and took her hand. "Let's… stay strong, okay? I'm sure our mothers would prefer us smiling." He gave her a genuine smile as he squeezed her hand.

Haruhi smiled back also, for real this time. "Yeah. Let's… let's keep moving forward."

As the two left the cemetery together, Haruhi dropped the umbrella to look up. The rain was clearing slowly. She handed the umbrella back to the bespectacled boy with a smile.

"Bye… and thanks… for everything."

"Good-bye, and… thank you too."

The two parted, thinking they wouldn't meet again. And although through the years Haruhi had forgotten the name and face, she still remembers the "violet iris boy" who had saved her that day. In a way, he had been her first love.

And Kyoya, although he too had forgotten the name and face, would always remember the "white iris girl" who he had found lying there in the rain. She was the girl who had made him smile for the first time in months, and was in a way also his first love.

Both of them met their blonde-haired second love not long after.

IV.

Haruhi had decided to splurge that day. It was her mother's birthday and she wanted a nice bouquet of irises to decorate their house with for the occasion. It was a bit lonely every year, eating dinner alone with those irises. It's not as if her long deceased mother could blow out the candles eight years after she had been cremated. But still, Haruhi did it every year, because she thought it would make her mother happy to see the house still lively on that day.

As she scanned the iris bouquets at a rather expensive flower shop (remember, she was splurging), she bumped into a blonde boy not too much older than her, who was looking rather excitedly through the irises.

"Ah, pardon me! I've disturbed the graceful walk of such a stunning maiden!" The boy bowed, smiling charmingly at her. He turned back to the irises and continued speaking before Haruhi could even respond. "Did you know, fair maiden, that the iris is the symbol of the glory of France? And a glorious place it is—if you ever travel, you absolutely _must_ go there!" He rambled on a bit more as Haruhi watched with an amused smile. What an eccentric character she'd met that day. She quickly realized that he was probably at least half French himself, judging by his blonde hair and his ever so slightly accented Japanese. Not to mention the fact that he stuck in random French exclamations within his speech.

She smiled as she picked out a bouquet of yellow ones, deciding that this hyper blonde boy had put her into the mood for yellow irises. "France, huh? I'm sure mom would like it there. These flowers are for her birthday, you know. Her favorite."

"_C'est vrai_? Tell her happy birthday for me!!" This seemed to excite him even more.

Haruhi smiled. "You can tell her yourself."

"Eh? Where is she?" He looked around the store. "Surely she is as beautiful as you!"

Haruhi smiled and pointed up. "Just say it, she's listening, I'm sure."

The French boy's smile softened. "What's her name?"

"Fujioka Kotoko."

He grinned up at the ceiling of the flower shop. "Happy birthday, Fujioka Kotoko-san." He turned his brilliant smile back to Haruhi, who smiled a little wider at the sight. It was practically contagious. "Ah, you picked yellow ones!!" the tall boy exclaimed with excitement. "I love them—the color is just so cheerful!"

She laughed. "They remind me of you."

"Oh? _Juane_? Did you know, that yellow irises symbolize _passion_?" He said with a teasing smirk, saying "passion" in French.

Haruhi raised her eyebrows with a smile to match his. "_C'est vrai_? I didn't know you had a thing for my mother." She teased.

The other boy laughed out loud. "You are the only one who that didn't work on."

"Yeah, well you'd better watch out for those Japanese girls." Haruhi gave him a smile before waving and walking towards the counter to pay. "_Au revoir_."

She heard another laugh and a call of "_Au revoir, mon amour_!"

Haruhi couldn't help but giggle a bit. She wasn't normally the girly type, but it was about the first time she had the interest to flirt with anyone. And admittedly, she had some fun. He was just such an eccentric. He reminded her a bit of her father, even. He was, ironically, the type of person she could really like, although she had a hunch he would get annoying after a while. She paid for the flowers and walked out of the store. She never remembered why, but she did remember the birthday she had first bought her mother yellow flowers was the one when she was happiest.

V.

It was the anniversary of her mother's death the year she had joined the Host Club, and upon hearing this, Tamaki insisted on visiting her grave with Haruhi, saying that he wanted to meet Fujioka Kotoko. She had agreed without much of a fight, and although none of the other Host Club members could make it, she was glad he came. She knew having him by her side would prevent her from spiraling into the depression that overtook her for nearly a week before and after the death anniversary.

Together they first went to the field from Haruhi's childhood and gathered white irises together, talking and laughing. Tamaki made friends with a group of children who were also there, and together they picked enough flowers for all of them.

Next they went to a flower shop because Haruhi felt the white irises alone weren't enough. Tamaki couldn't agree more, stating that her mother's grave needed to be full of color.

At the florist's Haruhi bought some blue irises, although for some reason she didn't like them very much. It reminded her of that day eleven years ago. All she could remember was the suffocating smell of antiseptics and the blue irises through which she had seen her mother's unmoving body for the last time.

Then she made sure to buy some violet ones in honor of her "violet iris boy". Although they hadn't met again, and the last name on Haruka's grave had weathered away so she never would figure out who it was, that didn't mean she had forgotten. She made it a tradition to leave a small bunch of violet and white irises for Haruka every year in his memory.

As she was getting ready to pay, Tamaki came along with a bunch of yellow irises to add. He insisted on some brightness for "dear Kotoko-san" and how the yellow irises would be just the right touch. Haruhi rolled her eyes but accepted it with a smile, keeping in mind the birthday tradition of yellow irises she had kept since that year. She really wished she remembered why she had been so happy that day.

Together they strolled idly to her grave and set down the flowers. They hung there in silence, Tamaki smiling softly at Kotoko's grave as if mentally saying something to her. After glancing at Tamaki for a moment, Haruhi turned back to her mother's grave. She smiled widely for her mother, and it was her own way of saying, _I think I'm going to be okay, mom._

Tamaki broke her thought by taking her hand. "Haruhi, I wanted your mother to be here when I told you this." He started slowly. She turned to face him with a questioning look, and he took her other hand. "Haruhi…"

A long moment passed as loose petals from the irises blew around them.

"I love you."

VI.

Hikaru hadn't spoken for a long time. He just stared out the window of their bedroom, and empty look on his face.

"Hikaru…" Kaoru edged closer to him on the bed. "It's okay… They're be others…"

"No, Kaoru, you don't understand! This is Haruhi… there's… nobody else like her…" Hikaru's face turned to a scowl. "And Tamaki just… I can't believe she loves him!"

Kaoru put a hand on his shoulder. "I know how you feel, but… you… still have me, right? And she's still our friend…"

This time Hikaru turned on Kaoru, yelling. "You _don't_ understand!! You're not in love with her! Our world can't be just you and me—I want more Kaoru! I love you, but… You're not everything in this world!!"

Kaoru withdrew his hand, eyes wide. He crawled to the other side of the bed and sat facing the opposite direction in order to hide the tears brimming in his eyes. There was so much he wanted to say, but he knew there was no use in saying anything.

He couldn't make Hikaru realize that he _was_ Kaoru's world. He couldn't tell him that he really did love him. The world as he knew it had fallen to far for it to be any use now.

He sat there a long time, staring at the blue irises that sat in a vase on their table as the sun slipped quietly into the horizon.

VII.

"Hey, Tamaki what do you want to see when we go on our annual trip to Kyoto this year?" Kyoya asked Tamaki, his laptop full with travel guide windows.

"Oh, Kyoya!! This weekend, Haruhi and I are going out to a theme park!! I forgot to tell you…" Tamaki's eyes shone with anticipation. He turned back to Kyoya and grinned. "Let's go to Kyoto _next_ weekend, okay? But don't worry, I haven't forgotten about it—we do it every year!" Tamaki hugged Kyoya. "With my bestest friend ever!"

Kyoya grinned. "Okay Tamaki…" Tamaki released him and skipped off humming something about a lunch date with Haruhi.

Kyoya's smile faded as Tamaki left and a lonely feeling crept into him. He knew it would be like this… yet it was hard for him to accept. He closed the travel websites and leaned back in his chair staring at his desktop. It was a picture of the entire Host Club on "kotatsu day" all of them seated around the heated table, each holding an orange. Tamaki had one arm around Kyoya and the other around a reluctant Haruhi.

He closed his laptop and left the school, directing the limo to go to the place he had been longing for. He leaned against the cool window and realized that Tamaki had gone to an unreachable place.

At this point, he could never tell Tamaki he loved him.

He got out of the car and walked up the familiar dirt path and walked down it until he reached his destination. He smiled when he did.

A bouquet of white and violet irises awaited him at his mother's grave.

He looked next to it to see a bouquet of irises of every color adorning Kotoko's grave. The first character of Kotoko's last name was rubbed off, and he had a feeling he never would find out whom that girl was, yet the sight of the irises made him feel better in a way.

A gust of wind blew around him and the flowers. As he watched a yellow and white iris fell away from the bouquet blew away together into the clear blue sky.


End file.
